Thursday, July 24, 2008

Tonight we had soup made from left over leftovers - the remains of the chicken and tomato casserole we had on Tuesday night, which included, as I'm sure you remember the remains of the tomato, bean and potato dish we had on Saturday night.

ingredients

oil1 stick of celery, sliced1 clove of garlic, smashed and slicedcorn from 1 cob of corn5 spring onions, slicedleftover chicken and tomato casserole: take the meat off the chicken maryland and chop, chop the potatoes into smaller pieces

method

Heat a heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Add some oil. Add the sliced celery and stir about. Add the garlic and stir again. Add the chopped potatoes and the corn. Add the tomato sauce and some boiling water. Add the spring onions. Bring it all to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the chicken, simmer about 3 minutes. Add some more boiling water if it's looking to thick.

Put a heavy frypan onto heat. I use a cast iron pan and a medium-hot heat. Put in a little oil, and a knob of butter. When the butter has melted and is foaming add the onion. Stir and cook, maybe turn the heat down a little. I usually cook the onion until it's just going transparent and soft, but today I let it stick a little and go brown. It was good. When the onion is partially cooked add the rice and stir around to coat it with the butter and oil. Add the sliced mushrooms, again stir and let cook for about 2 minutes. Grind on some pepper. Add some of the hot stock, stir. Let the rice and stock cook together stirring occasionally. As the rice soaks up the liquid add more. Eventually the rice will have pretty much taken up all the liquid. Taste the rice to see if it's cooked. If it's not add a little more stock, or hot water. Stir and keep cooking. Right at the end turn off the heat, add the spring onions, a little more butter cut into very small bits, and stir through. Add the grated Parmesan and stir through again.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I was going to show Tim how to make Poulet Bonne Femme for dinner tonight, but on my way home I realised that we've only got one potato left in the cupboard. And PBF needs at least two potatoes, if not three.

So, I had a think about what we've got in the fridge and remembered that we've got a large container of leftover tomato, green bean, and potato stew left over from Saturday night ... I'll run a chicken and tomato casserole by Tim when he gets home and see what he thinks.

heat the olive oil in a heavy potput in the herbs and let sizzle for a minuteput in the chicken, grind over some pepper, and sprinkle on a little salt and brownremove the chicken to a side plateput in the onion and cook until softening and beginning to turn goldenstir in the tomato pasteadd the chicken back into the potpour on the wine and stir aroundadd in the tomato component of the stew bring to a simmer and let cook for approx 20 minutestowards the end of the cooking add in the bean and potato component of the stewright at the end add the olives

Saturday, July 12, 2008

I'm thinking about doing a Commercial Cooking course at TAFE next year. Partly because when I talk about opening a restaurant people say "have you worked in the industry?" and obviously cooking for a lot of paying customers on a regular basis is different to cooking for yourself on a regular basis. I'm interested in the difference, in what makes a good cafe or restaurant, and what makes good home cooking. I'm interested in what makes a good recipe and a good cookbook.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

I've just checked Larousse and Paul Bocuse and really I should be calling this dish Poulet a la Bonne Femme. Bocuse calls the dish Chicken in a Casserole with Potatoes which is a pretty accurate description of the dish but not very romantic.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

fried eggs and haloumigreen beans and tomatorice with onionradicchio and artichokeolives

this was a beautiful to look at dish: the yellow orange egg yolk surrounded by rice, the dull green and red of cooked beans and tomato leaking yellow oil, the dull grey green artichokes against crimson radicchio, and black olives